REVIEW: Zeta June and FireSale play for Friday Night Concert Series

FireSale playing their funky tunes for the Iowa City crowd at the Friday Night Concert Series

As the sun began to set, the funky swirl of melodic tunes heard throughout the pedestrian mall in Iowa City, continued to bring a crowd.

After a energetic pep rally from the Hawkeye Hometown Huddle, this Friday Night Concert Series was one of the best concerts yet. An undeniable energy was emitted from the chemistry of the blended variety of funk, reggage, blues, slap bass, classic, and even some psychedelic, synth, rock music. Friday's concert series show was full of an uncanny atmosphere of of groovy vibes, that made almost every member in attendance to the free show, get up and start dancing or swaying to the beat. Some even ventured to hoolahoop in a simplistic, hypnotizing fashion in front of the crowd.

To the start the night off, local band, Zeta June is comprised of members Porter Hand, Mitch Hruby, Ian Crawford, and Cody Kuhens. With influences such as Umphrey's McGee, Phish, Grateful Dead, and Led Zeppelin, this band showed talent in the ability to create catchy melodies with an impressive sense of improvisation. As part of Iowa City's underground music scene, Zeta June has recently piqued the interest from many with a passion for eclectic music. Making headway with their music, Zeta June, had a CD release party on Saturday night at the Yacht Club.

Not only, did Zeta June start the night off with layers of lingering sustained echoing guitar, exchanged between the swaying funk of reggage beats, many of those walking by through the ped mall of Iowa City stopped to watch in a trance of fascination. Once the band finished on a strong note, FireSale, another local band, stepped up to the stage to play. Originally from Davenport, IA the group of now five members, began in 2007. Since then they have released a full length Self-titled album in the late 2009 and in August 2012 they released their second full length album "Mind Breath."

Throughout their set they play new and old songs from their albums, all the while the many in the audience repeatedly got up to start dancing right in front of the stage, sign of bashfulness dwindled. Exchanging lively riffage between the guitars, the camaraderie between each of the members you could tell they had been friends and bandmates for quite awhile. On lead vocals and guitar, Max Lipnick did a lot of the talking but FireSale wouldn't be what it is today without the other members, Colton Menke, on lead guitar and vocals, Joe Verstraete on drums and percussion, Mickinley Kuhlmann on Bass, Brady Stender on tenor saxophone, and Evan White on bari and the alto saxophone.

Throughout the tip toeing pulses of swoops and weaves through a mist of melodic tones, the exchanging of lively riffage was most apparent when they played a cover song originally by Euforquestra. Stender's sax skills provided rich bluesy tones to give the band even more variety within their talents. Even some of their more recent songs, "Contradictory," along with "Time for a Change," were played with a lot of funky, broodingly insistent groovy notes. As they played until 9:30 p.m.--later than usual for most Friday night concert series--the crowd stuck around until the very end. Finishing strong with widespread applause from all, Zeta June and FireSale's smooth swirling melodica of funky riff-raffs and talented vocals, were a great way to start the weekend off right.